A quick curiosity [Apple]

As a consumer whore, I have a habit of checking the Gold-Box deals on Amazon just to kill time, but rarely does something tickle my fancy.

Whilst navigating through the store the other day, I saw that I could 'save big' on previous generation iMacs, but the prices were tantalisingly out of sight. "Add to cart to see price", it exhorted. Fair enough!

A click later, and I'm looking at the iMacs available. The cheapest is marked down from $1099, but to determine how much has been knocked off, i must 'Click to see price'. Here goes!

$1,079.99? It's fallen by a whole $19.01! That's some serious bull right there. How dare you make me click three times to learn that last year's iMac has barely been discounted. Why, Amazon, why?

Click to read comfortably

Oh. Because Apple (and other retailers) won't allow Amazon to advertise a price below the "minimum advertised price", I wasted twelve seconds of my day thinking I could get a good deal on an iMac, then wasted three minutes of yours telling you about it. You learn something new every day.

But hey, if you were looking at an iMac 10 months ago and thought to yourself "Man, I'd totally buy that if it was only 1.7% cheaper" it looks like today is your lucky day!

Remember, if you're looking to buy anything from Apple, consult the MacRumors Buying Guide to avoid putting your tech-savvy friends in an awkward spot when you show them your shiny new iDevice that's three days away from being old hat.

Flyer Foul-Ups, and other distractions

For some reason, having a phone on me at all times just means I end up taking pictures of weird stuff, rarely sharing it with anyone unless I can find a suitable occasion.

I've designed a few flyers in my day. Not particularly good ones mind, but I always endeavour to get the basics right - I may not have the flashiest artwork, but at least I'm consistent. Unlike this flyer advertising additional downloadable content for Mafia II on the PS3:

Which is it, flyer? The 'Made Man' or 'Man Made' pack? While both are phrases used in the English language, it puzzles me that something this obvious slipped through.

I'll get to the next flyer after I clear out some more weird stuff from my phone:

On the impulse buy rack at a grocery store in the US: a "Kid-Pleasing" TV Series. How do you please kids? Suggestive tail pulling, naturally

They have ORANGE Cadbury's Creme Eggs in the US. Can somebody get me a freaking green card already?

Can't afford Penguin bars but refuse to buy a non-aquatic themed equivalent? Seal bars are available at your local Lidl to fill this gap in the market

Yanks covers their cars in moronic Jesus-propaganda to win good graces. "Elect Jesus"? "Jesus Christ - He's the Real King" in Coca-Cola font? Who comes up with this crap and sells it for $9.99? And how can I get on this bandwagon?

Okay, back on topic - the other flyer I want to share is from Harvey Norman. Remember Harvey Norman? Here's a hint - they're conniving, bait'n'switching sons-a-bitches. Let's have a look at their latest, 'Hardly Normal' flyer:

Holy balls! A Nintendo 3DS for €129! I'll be there right away! Hang on a tick - the picture is of the Nintendo 3DS, but the accompanying text (and logo) reads Nintendo DSi Console. This is an obscene screw up, and when part of your business practices involves advertising deals in print that aren't available in store, you don't get the benefit of the doubt on this one, Norman. From now on, I'm referring to such promotional material from your company as 'liars'. Heh-heh.

And thus concludes today's lesson on blogging for people with dull lives. Don't have anything interesting to say? Post some pictures and make some words about them!

How many dumb Europeans will this kill?

When I'm browsing the internet in Ireland, my computer knows I'm in Ireland.

This information is used to automatically redirect me to region-specific sub-sites, deny me access to my favourite foreign TV shows, and entice me with hot young girls in my area who want to "have sex tonight".

Okay, so I sound a little begrudging, but at least it makes sure that I'm only exposed to pertinent advertising. Like this PSA from the American Heart Association... 

Dial 911 at the first sign of a stroke? I'll have to bear that in mind, and forget about that Irish emergency services number I had committed to memory...

Harvey Norman's Vaguely Impressive Piffle

There was great excitement at work last week when an unmarked envelope was handed in at reception.


Inside was a letter from Harvey Norman (an electronics and furniture chain that have an outlet nearby), inviting me to a special VIP night as I was a "Valued Customer"

There are a few things about this letter that I find incongruous:

1. The envelope was blank, yet the salutation within is to a 'Valued Customer'. I don't think they really cared who opened the envelope.

2. They called me a "valued customer". I've spent practically nothing in Harvey Norman over the past two years on account of the underhand tactics employed by their TV shillers. I don't think they really cared who opened the envelope.

3. The letter advises the valued customer, who is valued for the custom they have brought to the business to "contact the store on 061-422800 for directions". Maybe a lot of their valued customers are forgetful. Maybe they didn't really care who opened the envelope.

4. The letter recipient is told to "feel free to extend your invite to family, friends and neighbors to take advantage of this wonderful night of savings" - they're essentially saying "it's a VIP night for people who aren't particularly important."

5. The letter promises "staff prices throughout the evening", but the letter itself has that phrase in quotation marks. They're effectively saying I'm giving you a "discount".

6. Attendees will get exclusive offers with "never seen before prices". Just because the price hasn't been seen before doesn't necessarily mean that it's lower.

7. It's the "First Annual VIP Night". Exciting! But the previous night had "over 1500 attending" But this is the first one!

Y'know what would have been a better idea? To announce that Harvey Norman are having a late-opening sale. Maybe they could say that they're liquidating stock. That would get me excited. Would anybody actually go for this bizarre marketing ploy?

Well, I went along at about 8.30pm to see if it worked. There were only about 20 people in the building, workforce included. It was only about two hours into the evening and the staff seemed to be begrudging the whole affair. When I approached the running 3D TV demo-unit with my friend and picked up the glasses to witness the paradigm-shifting goodness, some pissed off employee came running towards us and yelled "You okay, lads?" to startle me into putting back the anointed eyewear. Surely a VIP is deserving of a "Sir" when he's being rebuked for trying out the fucking demo-unit that they've been pimping on the radio ad-nauseam?

One of the best deals I saw was an iPod/iPhone TV docking station for €99. I called in again today (a week later) to see that the price was now €99, and instead of a big "VIP EVENING" A4 sheet drawing attention to the price, there was now a small square pricetag, the same as everything else.

I went to the VIP night with two friends and an open mind, and Harvey Norman proved to me that their staff are surly, their hyperbole about great prices and unbeatable sales is unparalleled, and they conduct their business in an underhand fashion for no good reason.

Amazon - We Sell Book's

On a recent trip to Barnes & Noble, my ladyfriend and I got an impressive demo of the Nook, and we were both quite taken by the idea of an e-book reader. She's since dropped some blatant hints about her desire to have one, so I've decided to start paying attention to this burgeoning gadget-category.

After a few weeks of seeing Nooks and Kindles at every turn (it was a few weeks full of airport departure lounges, hotel lobbies, and cafés) I'm starting to believe that e-books are in fact 'the future'.

As soon as I decided to start paying attention to the technology, Amazon unveiled their newest iteration of the Kindle, so I decided to check out the official video detailing why it was worth the cash. It's a fairly typical video for this type of product: the main points appear as text on screen as a soothing male voice dishes out the impressive facts, and the Kindle pirouettes around on screen flirtatiously from different angles. Sadly, I was only able to enjoy this gadget-porn for about 78 seconds before an unwelcome visitor presented itself to me:

Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!

Begone, misplaced apostrophe! You don't belong here! You'd think that the largest purveyor of the written-word in the world would know where to put a shagging inverted-comma, right?

Of course they do:

These are the kind of silly mistakes that pedants like me use as excuses to ruin Christmasses. (Ask my girlfriend about the year when she really wanted an iPod, and ended up with a Sansa instead)

(Okay, maybe these are the kind of silly mistakes that pedants like me use to make themselves feel smarter than a huge corporation that earns more in one hour of operation than they will in their entire lives.)


Update: Gamma Goblin kindly pointed out in the comments that this matter isn't as black and white as I'd like to believe. The prick.

As seen on TV: Part Deux

Laugh all you want, but my mother still loves her Snuggie, and her continued enjoyment of this fine as-seen-on-TV product has piqued my curiosity about their other offerings, so today I’m going to regale you with yet another item I picked up in a US pharmacy that prompted an intrigued “hrrrmmmmmnn”.

ACTUAL PROMOTIONAL IMAGE

The Product: HD Vision Wrap Arounds

The contraption: Sunglasses. Sunglasses that apparently offer ‘clarity that you have never experienced’, ‘enhance your vision’, act ‘just like High Definition TV’, while being ‘lightweight and durable’ and offering a ‘Modern European Style.’ Sounds too good to be true!

The pitch: You’ve heard of high-definition television, right? It’s new and cutting edge, just like you want to be. Sadly, your new television is outputting images at 720p, but your old-fogey eyes are only capable of handling 480i. Wouldn’t it be great if you could wear something on your face that would make your eyes capable of high-definition? Instead of doing crazy sci-fi stuff involving bending light and focusing images for your retina, how about you wear a pair of sunglasses with an amber hue? This way, when you go outside wearing sunglasses, it won’t seem as dark! It’s high definition!

The target market: Impressionable cretins with such a fundamental misunderstanding of what ‘High-Definition’ means that they will pay $20 for a crap pair of shades off the telly-box.

The video:



Why I opted out: I'm not one for jumping the gun. HD? Pshaw! I've had HD on my computer monitor since before Y2K. Early adopters always get burned - I'm holding out for the revolutionary new product seen in these leaked photos from the As-Seen-On-TV warehouse:




And of course, the phrase that all this brought to mind:

As seen on TV. Which makes it good, right?

After months of derisive snorts at the Snuggie and its purveyors, I bought one for my mother last Christmas. It turned out to be one of the few gifts that's resonated with her, and I still find myself showered with gratitude for this thoughtful gift well into the new year. The Snuggie far exceeded my expectations, and now I'm investigating what other as-seen-on-TV products I should consider purchasing with an open mind.

The product: Bottle Top, which I encountered during my last trip to the States in late March: The premise: ‘Turn your your drink can into a bottle!’ The contraption: A plastic doodad that looks like the top of a bottle which clasps on to a soda can, imbuing it with it all the conveniences associated with drinking from a resealable bottle. The pitch: Are you too stupid and uncoordinated to drink from a soda can? Is your lack of intellect so overpowering that you continue to buy soda cans, knowing that your handicap prevents you from drinking out of anything other than a bottle? Do you make a habit of drinking from soda cans that have been left out, only to find yourself repulsed by the lack of carbonation left within? Do you regularly place your open cans in the door of your refrigerator with nothing to hold them steady, then complain about the mess it caused all by itself? Well suffer no more, thanks to Bottle Top! The video: Why I opted out: If I purchased directly from the website, I get a free soda-can-pull-tab-opener. I'm not making this shit up (and yes, the video makes it appear really difficult to open a soda can with just your bare hands).

"But wait! There's more!"

"THERE HAS TO BE A BETTER WAY!"

Part of the website that makes me think they don't take it seriously either: "just snap on Bottle Top™ and your done."

Teeth-whitening Mom, 7 months on

Back in April, I wrote a blog post bemoaning how advertisers, when pimping their healthcare products, would sooner tout their affiliation with some lone nutter making concoctions in a bathtub, than admit to the involvement of a team of elitist, educated, clipboart-toting, labcoat-wearing, science-doin' sons a bitches.

One of the examples used was an advertisement for teeth-whitening products:

"Read the trick" it exhorted, "discovered by a mom to turn yellow teeth white". Doesn't that sound like a splendid idea? Sadly, the only mothers I trust are single mothers, so I ignored this ad back in the day.

But lo, what's this I see in my browser window?

Not only is this person a mom (thus eliminating the possibility of her being part of the evil Big-Pharma conspiracy to poison us all), but she's single, and therefore much more deserving of my money and attention!

If only I didn't have a policy of only taking teeth-whitening advice from black single moms... With peg-legs.

"A Visit to the Hairdresser's" - Part II

Criminy!

When I shared my lament about how tortuous I find the obligatory chit-chat with barbers, it was before I had strolled past a stall at a Milwaukee mall shilling 'As-Seen-On-TV' Contraptions and noticed the 'Aircut' product.

Just now, as I was responding to the comments on that post, I thought it would be appropriate to make a reference to it, so I Googled my way over to the website:

The website is filled with the usual hilarity associated with these TV offers:

Stock photos used to show that it's suitable for just about everybody!

Graphs to show you that you can't afford not to use the product!

Overly effusive testimonies extolling the virtues of the product! (Interestingly, 7 out of 9 testimonies are from Wisconsin based users - could it be that the inventor's family and friends have kind words to share?)

Some 'hard sell' copy that really stretches to fill the 'Top 10 reasons to get this product' list...

Hang on a tick...


No more conversing with barbers? Let me just get my credit card.

A Facebook App I don't instinctively loathe?

I've always been of the opinion that Coca-Cola have a damn fine marketing department, and this opinion was just bolstered by the Facebook App that I added to my profile this evening - it's the fourth applications I've added since the feature went live.

Coke Zero's schtick is that it tastes exactly like Coca-Cola, and this app attempts to tie into that by asking If Coke Zero has Coke’s taste… is it possible someone out there has your face? While I don't see the correlation, I still think it's about as clever as a beverage-tie in could be.

Check out the (far spookier than it ought to be) intro to the app:



So basically, the site scans your Facebook profile, finds a few suitable pictures, then asks you to pick three, and provide a 'control' image from your harddrive or webcam [and calling it a 'control' makes it sound so much more sciencey!]. Once the computer has learnt your face, it can tell you of people around the world who look the same as you - so simple, yet so brilliant! It taps into the same sense of curiosity, vanity, and/or narcissism that Hot-Or-Not type websites capture.




The whole thing is relatively painless, even if the interface strains to make things futuristic with some unnecessary bells and whistles and a strange Sci-Fi dystopia soundtrack.

Unfortunately, the end result is a bit of a damp squib:

Click to enlarge

'YOU'VE SUCCESSFULLY JOINED A WORLDWIDE SOCIAL EXPERIMENT' it proclaims, trying to keep your enthusiasm up. "Neat!" you think to yourself. "Now what?" URRRRRRR... GO ANNOY ALL YOUR FRIENDS TO JOIN THIS THING, OTHERWISE YOU'LL HAVE WASTED THE LAST FIVE MINUTES.

It seems that rather than limp along with a small database, they've decided to delay gratification and wait until they get enough images to provide a decent service, which I have no qualms with, as most facial comparison apps I've encountered so far are total ass. That said, the poor yields I've had from facial recognition software so far don't have me entirely excited about how incisive the results will be, if iPhoto's efforts to find every photo I'm in are anything to go by:


Whatever happens, I'm hoping that the subject of Strange-Young-Man's comment yesterday signs up so we can settle the resemblance issue through cold hard algorithms:

Separated at birth? Click here for original of 'Duke' guy

Of course, the only fear I have is that this technology could be harnessed for evil - what if my girlfriend manages to locate someone with my incredibly good looks, but who lives on the same continent as her?

Pffft - as if!

Deja Vu (in the most literal sense?)

I've a cinema-date tonight to go see State of Play, a film I've not heard anything about (which is how I generally prefer to watch movies), and while double-checking the time on the Omniplex website, I noticed this advertisement for the lazy-eyed Matthew McConaughey's latest film:

This of course, brings to mind a previous entry from December 07 (One for the Lay-deez), which featured the following image:


That's right, Matthew McConaughey's campaign to lean against every woman in Hollywood is still underway. Brace yourself, ladies.

Viral Advertising done right?

I have two major peeves when it comes to viral video. The first is commercially planted viral video that tries to pass itself off as 'organic', and the other is one that plagiarises another video that came before it.

Despite this, I found the following video quite entertaining - it's billed as a 'ladies' response' to the Jizz In My Pants video (which has almost 46 MILLION views on YouTube alone!), where the female analogue - worryingly enough - involves regurgitation.


In exchange for five seconds of product placement for a fake wedding ring that can be deployed from keyring when pervy plonkers are on the prowl, you get two and a half enjoyable minutes of procrastination. The video ends with the URL for mstaken.com, where you can buy the product that you probably didn't notice in the video.

Like its source material, the first minute or so is the most worthwhile:

Saddened as I am that there's even a market for a product like this, I'm pretty sure that it'd have no effect on 90% of men anyhow. Unless there's a feature in which a great big buff dude springs out of that little keychain and administers threatening looks, I reckon you're just paying $50 for a nifty keyring and a cute conversation starter at your knitting circle.

Twits are down with Christ

Early last month, I caved into the mounting media hype and signed up for a Twitter account, partly to ensure I’d get a half decent username before everybody else jumped on the bandwagon, but mostly out of curiosity.

I still don’t know what to do with my Twitter account – should I just contribute to the overload of chaff online by posting about old jumpers I find in my closet, or the chores I undertake on any given day? Should I use it as a privacy-free platform for talking with my friends (which is already facilitated by Facebook and Bebo)? Pimp my blog? Share cool links? All mind-bogglingly exciting possibilities.

Well, I've found at least one person out there who has a focused purpose for Twittering - they came up on my radar after becoming my eighth follower, and the excitement caused was only quelled when I inspected their profile. The name should have been enough, shown here next to the solitary tweet on the account:


Where does waytoheaven1522 link to? Why HeavenTruth.org, of course, the home of 'An Important Message Explaining the Truth About Going To Heaven'!

Come with me if you want to live

Yep, it's a load of twaddle about how you're a bad person, and some (conspicuously white) bearded bloke from Israel died just for you, and you're too much of a miserable fuck to even say thanks. He's so pissed about this lack of gratitude that he's lined up some bad men to poke you up the bum with hot pointy things (or if you're into that kind of thing, cold blunt things), but if you decide to go around telling everybody about how great he is, he'll give you an all-access pass to the greatest amusement park of all time, but with no lines! All you have to do is tell everybody about how great he is! Quite the sweet deal.

I've bookmarked the site, if only for the marvellous pictures that they provide, should Sully's Blog ever decide to have a caption competition.


After apparently coining the word 'tweetvangelism', then looking to see if people were using another word for the phenomenon, I did a Google search which lead me to a rather hilarious slice of web-real estate promoting Twitter Evangelism!

That's right, Twitter (among other sites) is the next frontier on which religious nuts (who mean well, bless their deluded hearts) will badger us incessantly. And why not? They've crunched the numbers, this Christ guy will have a lot more friends if they can tap into this lucrative 'social networking' craze.

The number of members of Social Networking websites today far exceed Dunbar's 150. Myspace alone, for example, has 168,112,249 members with more joining every day.

I urge you - don't pass up this opportunity to reach the world for Christ! The secular-world is employing this phenomenon to its great benefit. Why not the Church?

Too often, we Christians conclude that we need to avoid, like the plague, any practice with which we are either unfamiliar or uncomfortable. Where would be today if our Church Fathers refused to do that which they found uncomfortable?

The cherry on top?



They're selling this noble call to arms! If you want to join in the great online crusade for Christ, you'll have all you need to know for $7!

Seven dollars? I think I'll pass. Come back to me when the price is $9.95 and comes with a FREE!!! bottle of Soul-Clenze, valued at $15.95!

UPDATE 02/05/09: Twitter has blocked the account - swift justice like this makes me very happy indeed.

Suck it, Christ fans!

Amazon in false advertising shocker!

I must've missed some checkbox that I was meant to untick last time I bought from Amazon, given the amount of e-mails they've been sending my way.

Not that I'm bothered by it, as I've been mildly interested in everything they've been pimping to me thus far (since I'm still trying to justify buying a Blu-Ray player Playstation 3).

Just now, that mild interest turned to serious intrigue when I saw the subject heading for today's e-mail:

2 for 1? The porn-baiting may have failed, but this is something I'll probably avail of! Or so I thought, but of course, once I clicked into the message, the actual offer wasn't anywhere near as impressive as it initially seemed:


"Buy 2, Get 1 free", meaning that the subject ought to have been "3-for-2 Blu-ray Sale". Fail.

Virgin Mobile have balls, yo

Fantastic video, eh? Of course, their claim of 'a holiday for all of us' is a bit tardy, as for years now the human race has been aware of the Festivus for the rest of us!

Mark my words, anybody who plans on putting up with me for the foreseeable future - if you want me in your life, you'll have to make room for Festivus.